Southern Comfort - Natasha Madison Page 0,71
ask him and then answer for him. “Is it Dominic? I mean, how can he? He’s locked up.”
“Yes, but his associates aren’t,” Derek points out. “He’s in jail, but whoever he is working with isn’t.”
“Okay, this is going above and beyond,” I say, getting angry now. “I don’t know anything about his associates. I don’t know who he worked for, and I don’t know who worked for him. I know nothing.”
“But they don’t know that,” Casey says. “For all they know, you know everything, and you are hiding it for him.”
“Well, who are these people? I could maybe call them and tell them that I know nothing.” I start to get angry. “I mean, do I take out a billboard in Times Square? Do I grant CNN an interview? What the hell can I do?”
“There was a couple of visitors that Dominic got a couple of weeks ago,” Derek starts to say. “I got a copy of their conversation, and it’s all in code.” My eyebrows go together. “They talked about the sun in India and then the water in Bora Bora.”
“Again. No idea,” I say, and he looks down and then up at me, and just from his look, I know that shit is going to get worse.
“He got to use the phone yesterday,” he says. “He called the same man who visited him in prison.” I wait for it. “He wants to wipe the slate clean.”
“That’s good, right?” I ask. “Means he’s ready to 'fess up.”
“Not exactly,” Derek says. “Someone put a price on your head.” I look at him and then at Casey, not sure I understand.
“What does that mean?” I ask, waiting for someone to answer me.
Casey is the one who answers me. “It means there is a contract out there to end your life.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Casey
I watch her face when I say what Derek told me not even thirty minutes ago. I watch and see the words sink into her, and then I watch her crumple in front of me.
“Why?” she asks, lips quivering while she does it.
“We have the FBI on their way here,” Derek says, “and when I get the computer, I can see if something is on there. But bottom line. You have something that they need and now they are done waiting for it.”
She shakes her head and gets angry. “I don’t fucking have anything.”
“I know you don’t,” I say, and I don’t say that my parents’ house is under surveillance; I don’t say that Jacob and Kallie are staying at my house because they are set up with cameras, and that Jacob feels safer having eyes all around him. I don’t say that my mother is beside herself with worry for her and wants her home because I’m afraid that she won’t go. Instead of going where she is going to be safe, she’ll run away from it to make sure the people she cares about are safe.
“All of this.” She gets up now and starts to pace. “All of this has nothing to do with me. Not one thing.”
“I know it doesn’t,” I say, getting up now. “But …” I’m about to say something when Derek gets a ping on his phone.
“He’s using the phone,” he says, and then I look at him as he presses the button, and you hear ringing.
Someone answers the phone, and the operator comes on, “There is an inmate from a correctional facility.” You hear the sound of someone pressing the button.
“Hey,” Dominic says, and I look over at Olivia who stands there. “What’s new?”
“Nothing. I’m in Atlanta,” the guy on the other line says. “It’s hot as balls, but a lot better than the fucking South.”
“Did you clean up the place?” Dominic asks, and I want to spend five minutes with him and wring his fucking neck. I actually need two minutes alone with him, just two minutes.
“I tried,” he says. “Can’t get close enough.”
“You need to just erase it all,” Dominic says.
“She’s kept under lock and key. She has that cowboy trailing her like her pussy is the missing link.”
“Trust me, I’ve been in that pussy. It’s cold as ice.” I want to tell Derek to shut it down.
“Maybe if your dick stayed hard longer than thirty-five seconds, my pussy would be warmer, you piece of monkey shit!” Olivia shouts. I can see something in her change, and she looks over at me. “I want to do whatever I need to do to make sure that he dies.” She folds her hands. “I